Steps on the Road
by Escape Art1st
Summary: A little bit from Tate's view because I have always loved her character and I'm still not over her death. Please tell me what you think!


Steps

1.

Shock filters through, followed by anger and resentment. Tate is yelling but she can't really hear her own words. Little Taylor flinches and wet tears pour down her cheeks in confusion. The other boy grasps at her hand and sniffs loudly. Tate's rage is inconsolable as she tears through the house. Screaming at Eve, at the idiot she trusted with her little girl. A small woollen blanket rests on the worn leather. Little unicorns dance across the greying material. Her hand flicks forward and grasps the soft, fraying blanket and deftly wraps it around little Taylor's barely covered body.

This is my fault, Tate thinks.  
Webb wouldn't have done this. Webb would have been there to sing to little Taylor and bring her solace. All I bring her is tears. Tate's voice is almost hoarse as she screams bloody murder.

Webb wasn't here anymore.

Tears burn at her own eyes in frustration. She pulls open the car door and pushes Taylor in, the keys pressed tight into her palm. It takes her 5 tries before she manages to push the keys into the ignition. The car starts and roars like thunder.

2.

Tate pulls the car over for a moment. Her body shakes and Taylor is leaning against the window, completely asleep. She takes a deep breath. One and then a second. Moments pass and slowly Tate pulls herself out of the car and quickly races across the street to the phone booth. It was faded blue with a red phone symbol.

The dial sound echoed once before Narnie's voice rings through the receiver.

"Hello, Hannah Schroeder here."

Tate's breathe catches.

"Narnie? It's me… It's Tate."

The line echoes with silence for a whole minute.

"Tate where are you? I haven't heard from you in years. Just tell me where you are and I'll bring you back. I'll call Jude and he will drive to wherever you are right now. Taylor can come you know that Webb would want her to grow up here. She must be so big now-"

Tate is shocked. Narnie was never one for lots of words.

"I can't come home Narns." Tate slips into the old nickname easily. "I need you to take Taylor."

Narnie sighs, "Of course Tate. You know that I love Taylor. But can't you come too? Jude misses you. I miss you. And Fitzee-"

"Narnie. I signed the papers. You have to take her. I can't- I can't- you can't let me have her again. She isn't safe with me Narnie. You can't come looking for me. I know you will take care of her. You have to because I can't. I'm poison to her. I'm nothing but poison and someone needs to look after my little girl. To look after Webb's little girl."

Tears poured down Tate's cheeks and she turned to look back at the car, little Taylor's eyes tightly shut.

"Tate please, just meet with me and Jude and we can talk about this-"

"Hannah. There is nothing to talk about. You have to take Taylor. She'll be at the 7-Eleven at 12:15 tomorrow."

"Okay Tate, I'll see you then."

"Just promise me something Narnie."

"Anything."

"You can't be a mother to her. She has a mother. Please just give me that."

And then Tate put down the phone.

3.

The road was long and straight. The trees reached over head in a canopy that looked like a tunnel to Shangri-La.

Taylor sat next to her.

Tate had never been good at driving. She had learnt sometime after Webb was gone. Time had been split since then and she remembered things as either with Webb, before or after. She had learnt to drive in one of her clearer periods. This wasn't one of them.

Her hands began to shake as she clutched at the wheel harder with white knuckles.

Taylor was silent.

4.

Tate stopped the car and pulled over. She bit her lip and clenched her hands. The 7- Eleven glowed neon in the bright sun. Little Taylor reached over and placed her small hands over Tate's larger ones. Taylor's light brown hair shimmered in the golden sun.

Just like Webb's had.

Tate struggled to focus. It was quarter to noon and Narnie would be there at exactly 12:15. She opened the door and slowly pulled herself out of the car. Every movement echoed with the pain of need but Tate had to wait. Once Taylor was gone. Then she could forget. Then she could find the peace of numbness, of forgetting. Her footsteps thudded on the melted footpath under the heat that clung to her body like a physical body. She walked slowly to the passenger door before creaking it open. Taylor looked up at her with Webb's wide eyes.

"Go on my love, go to the bathroom."

Taylor was a sullen, quiet child who, for once, obediently stood and walked towards the bathroom stall.

Tate took one deep breath.

She turned and got back into the car.

5.

The room was remarkably bare. It lacked colour, decorations or any life at all. Tate thought it suited rather well.

The doctor sat awkwardly across from her, attempting to console her. Tate slowly let a relieved smile across her face. It's almost time, she thinks. Abruptly she stands up and interrupts her private angel of death.

"Do you have a phone?"

6.

Jude slowly pulls the car over. Tate's hands begin to shake.

"What is she like?"

Jude doesn't need to ask who she is referring to.

"She has grown up Tate. Taylor smiles like Webb and frowns like Hannah. But she has that look. Your look. The same way you smiled and saw Webb. The cadet she ran off to find you with, she stares at him like he is the only thing in her world. Damn it she is seventeen Tate. But I suppose with being a Markham and a Schroeder, and god knows you fall in love hard and fast."

Tate smiles. It's hard but she does it anyway.

"Like you and Narnie?"

"Yeah," Jude sighs, "Something like Narnie and I. But more like you and Webb."

7.

One step at a time Tate gets to the steps of the house. The one made out of gopher wood, just like Noah's ark. The house on Jellicoe Road.

In the light a figure pauses. Across those eyes Tate can see a look of wonder that has been so imprinted on her soul and she has missed so much that she can feel herself sob. Not dramatically but with such grief that had been building for 16 years after losing Webb and even another 6 years before that losing Lily and her parents.

Taylor is taller than Tate and it takes her seconds before the brown haired girl to grasp her mother to her chest.

Tate stares around her in amazement. Why had she thought that drugs and drink could bring her more solace than this? Than the home Webb had dreamed for her in the paradise she once loved?

8.

They spend days together, hold each other close in the night and attempt to make up for lost time but for Tate, every day is more and more painful. Narnie looks at her with eyes aged too old for her 32 years and Jude struggles to keep himself and Narnie together. Little Jessa is exactly like Fitz's crazy spirit and for a moment, Tate wonders about the happy-go-lucky boy who had saved her life so long ago. It's obvious to Tate that Taylor knows what Fitz did but neither of them speak of it. Even blinded in grief, Tate could never blame Fitz for a random shot through the tree branches.

Slowly time passes.

One night Tate slowly falls into a numb sleep with Taylor's arms wrapped around her fragile body. And then after a moment, she dreams of a beautiful tree. The leaves are a gorgeous autumn orange, still young enough to cling to the branches.

Webb is leaning against the tree and she finds herself in his arms. Her hair is the lovely silky black it had once been in her youth and her body is finally free from pain. Across from them sits Fitz, smiling with his crazy eyes. They help her stand on the branch and they peer over to see the beyond.

"Every is so bloody beautiful." Tate whispers.

Webb smiles in a way that echoes life and joy more than anything Tate has ever seen. Tate closes her eyes and leaps forward. With Webb and Fitz to her left and right.

And finally, Peace.


End file.
